On the Beach

By: Nevil Shute

Narrated by: Simon Prebble

Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins

Publisher's summary

A war no one fully understands has devastated the planet with radioactive fallout from massive cobalt bombing. Melbourne, Australia, is the only area whose citizens have not yet succumbed to the contamination. But there isn’t much time left, a few months, maybe more—and the citizens of Melbourne must decide how they will live the remaining weeks of their lives, and how they will face a hopeless future.

Published in 1957, On the Beach is considered a classic nuclear holocaust novel, and a masterpiece of speculative fiction.

©1957 Nevil Shute Norway (P)1991 Recorded Books, LLC

You won't be able to put this down

The characters and their lives are described realistically, with compassion, attention to detail, and even humor. The story could happen as easily today as when the story was set over 50 years ago. It will give you a new perspective on your own life as you realize we could share the same fate today if we don't take nuclear disarmament seriously.

Possibly the bleakest book ever

Yes, it is bleak, but most of the bleakness is below the surface. Human nature dictates that most people will attempt to go on with their lives as best they can. Shute never lets go of that tension between bleakness and everyday life, yet there is very little preachiness in his telling. The behavior of the people in this situation feels right for the most part. Shute attempts to account for the range of possible reactions while keeping his cast of characters to a manageable size. I think by and large the population would react with the vague sense of unreality that he describes. Modern studies of people's reactions to major natural disasters bear him out on this. There are some very human and touching moments such as Commander Towers looking for presents for his children.

Shute also avoids trying to explain too much about how the world got into the situation presented in the book. The why is unimportant. The 1959 movie struggled with both the issue of a backstory and the preachiness aspect. I sympathize with the film maker's need for the ending to make more of a statement. As a thought experiment, I think Shute makes the wiser choice of leaving it up to the reader to ponder.

Life's A Beach

Would you listen to On the Beach again? Why?

I might play it again.

What did you like best about this story?

When the girl's bra fell off.

What about Simon Prebble’s performance did you like?

He did a good job.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

If you only see one movie for the rest of your life....

Nothing like it

Absolute must read.

I just finished it and honestly i don't have the heart to say more. Devastating but beautiful.

a little too dated in language and attitude

Some classic apocalyptic stories stand the test of time better than others, and this is one of the "others". Certainly not the worst of the genre, but I think the language and attitude are a little too dated to really keep the reader, or listener, engaged. It was good, but not up to the level of some of the other great books of the genre.

The idea is a good one - not how do people deal with surviving an apocalypse, but what do people do when they know an apocalyptic event is coming and that they won't survive? Or rather, what do they do when they're in the final wave of the apocalyptic event, have seen the rest of the world fall, and know they will too be victims within a year or so? Would they really take the "stay calm and carry on" attitude expressed by the characters in this book (written by a a British author who was in the Royal Naval Reserves in WW II) or is that attitude lost in the changes in the last 50 years?

I should have known...

The story was great and the narrator very good. Why was I surprised by the depressing ending? Duh. Don’t listen to the last chapter . You know what happens from the book description and it is totally predictable.

Haunting.

I love post-apocolyptic books but this one is special in it's calmness in the face of inescapable doom. I read it few months ago and it's still haunting me (in the good way). The characters and their actions cross my mind as I do everyday things. It taught me to appreciate life.

heart breaking lessons

today, 10/14/2017, and I pray the ugliness of our beautiful earth learns heart breaking lessons.

more excellent work from Shute

The other Shute books all had happy endings. This one, dealing with the end of human life after a nuclear war, doesn't end happily, but it's a good story, excellently told, well narrated.
There was a movie of the story back around 1960, and I think the movie follows the book pretty well.

Tragic story

This is possibly one of the most depressing stories ever. It’s well written, and performed, but I sort of wished I hadn’t listened to it.